I'VE FIGURED IT OUT!!!

[Cruise Control]

I finally figured out why enemies stop spawning, and how to make them start spwaning with the same frequency.

I'll use the skeleton example/

On the bridge, the max chain you can get at once is 52. There are Skeletons, and Skeleton Defenders. They are named Skeleton A-Z, and Skeleton Defender A-Z. When you kill all of both of them, A-Z. They stop spawning. If you go 2 screens away from your current screen (think Kingdom Hearts), they respawn. I reccomend holding R2. ;)

[Yeargdribble]

I had theorized this at one point, but I managed to get a Chain 177 using on two zones of Lhusu Mines. If this theory were 100% correct I would only be able to hit 52, correct?

Somewhere in the middle of the chain (around 90ish) I had to put down the controller and go do something. By the time I had returned all of the skeletons out of a certain radius of me in the zone had repopped while I was away.

I also hear of people getting chain 100+ just ouside in Estersand at the beginning of the game without zoning.

[Miriel]

I'm pretty sure zoning doesn't have much to do with the respawning of monsters. Maybe it does. But I think it has more to do with the monsters having a respawn time period. So that when you clear an area, you have to wait a certain amount of time for them to respawn, regardless of whether you zone 1 or 2 screens away.

[Moon Rabbits]

Whenever I kill all the monsters in 1 screen then leave and come back, all the monsters are respawned. I even seem to remember this happening with a few treasure chests.

[Yeargdribble]

I think Skeletons are a special case and will respawn no matter what. However, most mobs will repop if you zone two zones away as well as treasure chests.

[Madame Adequate]

From what I can tell both theories here are true - moving two or more screens away will bring a full-scale respawn, but waiting awhile will also bring back quite a few of them.

[Zeromus_X]

Oh good, I've been wondering about that.

Man, so I can just leave my PS2 on overnight, then.